Dear Miss Device
by Silverfox1
Summary: GOE 2018. Albus Dumbledore receives a rather odd letter about a little witch called Anathema.


Dear Miss Device

The day the letter was sent started out as a perfectly normal summer holiday day at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. - That is, it was somewhat special since it happened to be Professor Minerva McGonagall's first day of work that school year. As deputy headmistress it was Minerva's duty to send the acceptance letters as well as the lists of required items for the next school year to the students, those had to arrive in plenty of time before the actual start of the school year to allow the students to make any necessary arrangements and purchases.

For Professor Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster, this was however quite fortunate as he rather rarely went on extended holidays himself and, much as he liked Rubeus Hagrid, tended to grow somewhat bored and lonely when the groundskeeper and the caretaker were the only other people around to talk to and share his meals with. Neither of the two had much to contribute to a conversation about the finer points of magic or philosophical questions.

Minerva, however, was similarly well educated as Albus and even shared his specialisation in Transfigurations and could therefore converse more than adequately on most of his favourite topics.

It was therefore somewhat later in the morning than usual that Albus went to his office after breakfast that day, his mind still on possible applications and tests of the latest new magical theory and in the happy expectation to have another very engaging conversation with Minerva at lunch, though this one would most likely be a lot less theoretical as she was just about to check the book that recorded all magical births for the names and number of the new first years to be expected to arrive on the first of September. She would want to inform him of all she knew about them and speculate on who would go into which house and how the Muggle-borns would adapt to life in the wizarding world, a topic which had the advantage of being very dear to Hagrid's heart as well and not going over his or Argus Filch's head either.

Thus Albus was humming contentedly to himself when he entered his office, fed his phoenix Fawkes and opened the window to let in the morning mail.

Several owls dove in right away, most of them barn owls, but there also were two very regal eagle owls and one particularly noisy screech owl.

Since eagle owls usually belonged to very influential people Albus made it a habit to relieve them of their letters first, but since this only seemed to aggravate the screech owl more, this time he decided to let her be second, putting the message from school governor Malfoy down on his desk unread.

The screech owl's letter had no return address either in front or on the back of the envelope, nor did Albus recognise the handwriting. Oh well, hopefully the signature would be readable. Albus put it on his desk next to Mr. Malfoy's letter and turned to the second eagle owl. Ah, yes, Cornelius Fudge's daily request for advice. He'd have to tend to that first as soon as he had freed and rewarded the poor barn owls. It was quite a bit after their natural bedtime, after all.

The politician's letter turned out to include nothing of truly vital importance, but nevertheless required a lengthy reply which took up almost an hour.

Knowing the wizard's notions of his own importance Albus chose to reply to Mr. Malfoy next. After all, Malfoy was most likely expecting an immediate reaction and would not appreciate to be made to wait for anybody less than the minister himself.

His letter turned out to contain nothing of relevance either, though. It was just the same old concerns that being educated alongside Muggle-born students would hold back the wizard-raised children's learning. Since Albus kept vehemently refusing to exclude Muggle-borns from admission to the school, Malfoy had thought of a new and, he fondly believed, ideal solution that would ensure the optimal education of all magically talented children in Britain. Rather than by house, children's classes should be arranged according to blood status and upbringing.

'One class in each subject should be reserved entirely for the poor disadvantaged Muggle-borns. In first year it should focus on introducing them to life in the wizarding world, our culture and traditions, before plunging them into bewildering theories and demanding the performance of actual magic. As for the half bloods, I suggest separating them into those raised in Muggle society and those raised in a more wizarding style, though I trust they all will be able to do practical work from the start. Should a student prove more or less versed or talented than his classmates he could easily be reassigned to a class that matches his needs better, which, by the way, also applies to talented Muggle-borns once they have completed the introduction phase.'

It quite ruined what little was left of Albus' good mood and the headmaster quickly wrote another scathing reply before turning to the next letter. It was almost pure coincidence that it was the one the screech owl had brought.

'Goode Morninge ye tardy Infecte!' Albus read.

He blinked. It wasn't the spelling, which he easily recognised as extremely antiquated rather than entirely wrong, nor the fact that the writer called him an insect. Indeed he thought that that joke was getting rather old - at least as old as he was, in fact - but he had never before been called a tardy insect. Usually it was a bumbling one, or rather a bumbling bee, to be exact.

'Had'ft Ye beene a little fafter to reade thyf muche Ado couldft have beene fpared Ye. Nowe Ye oughtst to retryfe yon Byrde.'

Despite all his experience reading ancient manuscripts it took Albus several minutes and two full re-reads of the entire letter to figure out that Mrs Nutter wanted him to chase down and recall the owl carrying Minerva's acceptance letter to Mrs Nutter's descendent Anna-Thea Devyce ... or at least that was what Albus assumed the correct name must be, if indeed such a person existed at all.

As far as he could tell, Mrs Nutter had to be a very old witch whose mind had grown a bit addled in lifelong intense study of medieval manuscripts. Most likely she was a retired historian, he decided. She certainly had to be very, very old as Albus didn't recognise her name, and he was confident that he remembered every student that had attended Hogwarts since he himself had started his schooling there.

She certainly had some very antiquated notions about the education of girls, claiming that Anna-Thea needed 'Thyme to ftudy thee Booke' and therefore couldn't 'wayfte yt on foolishe Wand Wayfinge'. Mrs Nutter might get on well with Severus Snape, Albus thought, though: 'No, ye olde Foole, I wylle not gette one wyth any of Ye. I am deade and ye have no Thyme to wayfte wyth Introductionf. Gette goinge and fynde yon Byrde!'

Well, what a coincidence! Albus laughed and put the letter aside to show Minerva at lunch. He could also find out whether Anna-Thea actually existed or not then. Since her last name seemed to start with D Minerva ought to have written her letter by now.

"Did you happen to notice a girl called Anna-Thea Devyce on the list, by the way?" Albus inquired as soon as Minerva had finished giving an initial overview of the relations of Muggle-borns to purebloods and wizards to witches among the new first years.

Minerva took only a moment to think.

"No," she replied. "No Anna-Theas at all. There is an Anathema Device, though."

"Anathema?" Argus asked incredulously. "Surely you aren't serious?"

"I'm afraid so," Minerva confirmed however. "Poor child. And I thought the Muggles would come to their senses once they saw how the Apples and Bunnys suffered in school, but no, now they are declaring their daughters Anathema."

"She is Muggle-born?" Albus asked. "Are you quite sure?"

"Oh yes, definitely nonmagical parents and an address in a perfectly boring Muggle neighbourhood," Minerva reported. "And really, what wizard in his right mind would name a child Anathema? Arachne or Artemisia, perhaps, but surely not Anathema."

"Well," Albus decided. "Then it must be a coincidence after all."

"What ..." Minerva started to inquire, but was interrupted by an owl landing in the soup bowl.

Albus wiped soup splashes and two noodles off his glasses while Hagrid rescued the bird.

"It's fer ye, headmaster," the half-giant announced a moment later and handed Albus the remarkably dry letter.

Albus turned it over in his hand, but there was no return address. So he opened it just to check who'd send him such an ill-timed owl.

'No, ye dodderinge Foole, iyt be no Coyncidence. Now wyl Ye go and ftoppe thy Owle or myft Ie alerte the Prophete of the Daye to thy Finf whyth yon Foreste over the Watere?'

"Fins?" Minerva inquired, reading over Albus' shoulder. "Forest over water? ... A mangrove forest?"

"Sins," Albus corrected. "And overseas, I assume. Though why Mrs Nutter holds me responsible for the Muggles' destruction of the American rainforests, I can't tell you either."

"Who is Mrs Nutter?" Angus asked, looking up from the towel with which he was wiping up the soup.

"The grandmother, or possibly great-grandmother, of the poor Anathema, it appears," Albus explained. "She is convinced that a magical education would take too much time away from Anathema's bible studies and therefore wants us to refuse the girl acceptance."

"Well, it is too late for that anyway," Minerva declared. "Her letter went off with the first batch this morning. It should reach Anathema tomorrow."

"We cannot refuse acceptance of a British born magically talented child that has done no wrong anyway," Albus reminded her. "Anathema's magical talent deserves and requires training. And since she is Muggle-born it would be severe neglect on our part not to provide it. Her parents cannot teach her to control her magic themselves nor can we expect them to know how to contact another school and Mrs Nutter does not appear to be sane enough to be entrusted with the education of anyone."

"Perhaps I should pay her a visit and explain the matter, though?" Minerva suggested. "I'm sure some sort of arrangement can be made to allow Anathema to attend regular Bible classes by portkey or floo."

"Ah, but ye have th'letters ta write," Hagrid objected. "I can do it."

"No, Hagrid," Albus interceded sternly. "You can't. Not considering the way Mrs Nutter chooses to express herself. You wouldn't understand her and it is quite possible she wouldn't understand you either. In fact, I think we'd best contact Seve... no, make that Filius, about it. He should be able to converse in Mrs Nutter's style and is patient enough not to hex her."

"Alright, I'll write a quick note to Filius," Minerva agreed. "What is Mrs Nutter's address?"

"I don't know," Albus had to admit. "She never remembers to give a return address. Never mind, though. You have enough to do with the acceptance letters. I'll research Mrs Nutter and write Filius myself."

And thus, after lunch, Albus went straight to the library.

Of course there was no Agnes Nutter in the old graduation lists. Mrs Nutter must have married, after all, and back then it would have been utterly unheard of for a married woman to continue to use her maiden name. There was no Mr Nutter there either, which was somewhat more disappointing, but Mrs Nutter could of course have married a Muggle, or a home schooled wizard, or, though that seemed unlikely for a witch that must have been quite studiously inclined, a wizard that had been content to leave school with his OWLs.

Albus compiled a list of all NEWT graduates called Agnes that might still be alive and their graduation dates and then moved on to the old issues of the Daily Prophet and its predecessor the Weekly Magical. There were only three Agneses on his list for whom he didn't find an announcement of death. For all three there were announcements of engagements or marriages, but none to a Mr Nutter. Two were widowed, but both recently enough that Albus doubted that they had remarried.

This was most annoying. Apparently Mrs Nutter had either been home-schooled or left Hogwarts early herself.

Unless ... Agnes was not unheard of as a name in Germany as well as Britain, and both the war with Grindelwald and the Muggles' World Wars had driven quite a number of refugees to England. Perhaps Mrs Nutter had graduated from Durmstrang, fled her home country as an adult and then married a British Muggle. In that case the Hogwarts records and wizarding papers would know nothing about her.

Albus decided to approach the problem from the other end and trace back the lineage of Anathema Device. The names of her parents had to be in the book, of course.

As it turned out they were, but Mrs Device's maiden name was Daniels, not Nutter.

"Not the grandmother, but a great-grandmother, then," Albus muttered with satisfaction.

Unfortunately neither Mrs nor Mr Device's name appeared in the book, however, confirming that they were, as Minerva had assumed, Muggles, or in fact Squibs, which in turn rendered it impossible to find the maiden names of their mothers.

Albus sighed. He'd have to owl the Ministry for Agnes Nutter's address. It should be on file there, if only due to the magical activity detected in the area. If he made the request to the minister himself he ought to get the reply by - a glance at the clock - tomorrow evening if he was lucky. It was already too late to expect the Ministry employees to still be at their desks today.

On a mere hunch and so he could say that he had indeed exhausted all other options first, Albus cast a seeking spell for the name of Agnes Nutter on the book.

It bounced. It's pages fluttered ... and then much to his surprise began turning rapidly. It appeared that Agnes Nutter was in the book after all! Then she must have returned to her maiden name after a divorce!

But why hadn't she shown up in the graduation lists, then?

Ah, but of course! Despite having ended up becoming a student of history Mrs Nutter believed that Bible studies were more important for a girl than magical education. Her schooling must have been unsatisfactory to her and she had left Hogwarts as soon as she was able to and never taken NEWTs.

"Perhaps she was bored," Albus decided. "The lessons may not have been challenging enough for a witch of her intellectual capacity and thus seemed like a waste of time."

The pages stopped fluttering and the book lay open to ... the fourth page? That couldn't be right! This would put Agnes Nutter's school days back in the lifetime of the Founders!

But nevertheless, there it was, somewhat faded after the centuries, but still readable: 'Agnef Fridwulfafdottir choined in Marriage to Harold Nutter in thif her fourf Annum of Apprentifefhipp. Therefore now Agnef Nutter.'

The spelling certainly looked like this might be the correct Agnes, but how could she still be alive?

But then, if this was an early student of the Founders, there should be more information about her in here. Back then there had not been a sorting hat yet, nor had the Founders come up with fixed criteria to sort students by. Instead their particular talents and deficits had been noted down and their assignment based on those.

Albus turned the page back ... and indeed, on the top of the third page he found the original entry of Agnes Fridwulfasdottir. As the almost thirteen year old daughter of a herb-witch she had required no further training in herblore, but an out of control talent for divination had forced her to seek guidance her mother couldn't provide. She had therefore been apprenticed to Helga Hufflepuff despite her advanced age.

Hold on, an out of control talent for divination? And hadn't she written 'I am deade'?

Albus sighed once again. There was no way Filius Flitwick could travel back to the middle ages to convince a long dead seer to stop her sabotage of the life of a descendent whose world the poor woman couldn't possibly hope to understand. He would have to put up with whatever odd messages were still to come since they had been written and posted centuries ago.

When Albus arrived for breakfast the next morning he found all three of his staff members engrossed in copies of the Daily Prophet.

"Why really," Minerva McGonagall scoffed just as he entered. "Their stories are getting more ludicrous by the day."

"I don' think it's funny," Hagrid told her. "Not when it's about th'headmaster."

"Why?" Albus inquired, mildly interested at that. "Are they calling me 'a doddering old fool that should have retired years ago' again?"

"No," Argus replied. "They are ... actually I am not quite sure what they are calling you, Headmaster. They are hinting more than they are saying."

"It's nothing to worry about in any case," Minerva assured him. "Nobody can possibly take this nonsense seriously. It is just some wildly concocted story about some mysterious source that could, if he wanted to, reveal some additional information about your defeat of Grindelwald that would apparently shock and appal the entire wizarding world."

"My defeat of Grindelwald?" Albus echoed, surprised. "Why, that story is widely known and in its entirety, I assure you. It was a very difficult duel, but hardly shocking or appalling. All things considered Grindelwald fought remarkably fair and if he committed any additional atrocities that the general public has not yet heard of, it certainly was not during the duel and is nothing to do with me."

"Well, it doesn't actually specify that final duel as such," Minerva admitted. "I just assumed that that is what it must refer to, but what it says here is that you and Grindelwald 'crossed wands in more ways than one'."

"It what?" Albus yelped and tore the paper out of her hand to read the article. "They can't possibly kn... mean to imply that ... How would they even? ... Does it actually say ..."

"Say what?" Hagrid inquired.

But by now Albus had himself under control far enough not to reply again and was reading the article for himself. In fact, it did not say that it was referring to the war itself. What it could actually be reduced down to was that the Daily Prophet had discovered an anonymous source that had told them that he or she could, if he or she were so inclined, give them scandalous details about the interactions of Albus and Gellert Grindelwald which included said crossing wands in more ways than one.

"Bathilda Bagshot," Albus decided after finishing the article. "She must have let something slip about us meeting when we were mere boys."

"Oh, did you?" Minerva asked. "I didn't know that. Was it a very unpleasant encounter?"

"No," Albus admitted. "Not at all. Grindelwald was just a boy visiting England during the holidays and I had no idea what a monster he would become. We were about the same age and I asked him over to our house a few times, I believe. Just to pass the time. I actually remembered him as a rather pleasant companion afterwards."

"But headmaster," Argus realised. "How could you have crossed wands during the holidays? Weren't you forbidden to use magic?"

"It was a magical household," Albus replied hastily. "And I remember we did sometimes practise spells in the basement where no Muggles could possibly see us. My brother and I often did have mock duels in there as well. Perhaps ... yes, I do think I remember having one with young Grindelwald as well. It was a small thing to us then, but in my current position I cannot afford it becoming public knowledge that I flaunted the rule as a boy. It would set a terrible example for the students."

Not to mention what would happen if somebody connected the duels to Ariana's death or recognised the euphemism possibly implied in the word 'wands.'

"I'll have to talk with Bathilda," he decided. "She must say no more of this. I'm surprised she didn't realise it herself, though. She never uttered a word about it before now." And then it came to him. "Agnes Nutter! Of course, the forest over the water isn't the Amazonian rainforest, it is Grindelwald. Wald is German for forest and the water is merely the English channel."

But in that case ...

"There is nothing to be done about it," he decided after thinking it over. "We must give in and stop that owl after all. I should have realised that a powerful seer like Mrs Nutter wouldn't act to influence the future if she hadn't seen that she would succeed."

"But Headmaster!" Minerva objected. "You can't possibly mean that. The poor child must be taught to control her magic and Hogwarts can't give in to blackmail. And really, I admit that it would be most uncomfortable if you had to admit to having broken the law for the restriction of underage magic, but you were just a boy. You could publicly condemn the act and give the students stern lectures on the folly of what you did."

"Personally," Argus interjected much to everybody's surprise, "I'd just deny everything. Demand that they show you their proof and have Agnes Nutter's owl printed. Then point out that the writer is obviously insane. As long as that Mrs Bagshot remains quiet you are perfectly safe."

But Albus knew that he couldn't possibly risk it.

"Agnes Nutter was an extraordinarily talented seer, Argus," he told the caretaker. "She would not have gone to the trouble of sending us any owls if she hadn't been absolutely sure she would succeed."

"That may be as it may," Minerva informed him. "But divination is not an exact discipline and it is too late to stop the owl. It has already been delivered and the bird is back in the owlery. I checked on them before I came down here this morning and particularly noticed that bird."

Dumbledore paled, but tried to keep his voice steady.

"Have we received a reply, yet?" he asked.

"Probably not or the owl would have been carrying it," Minerva replied.

"Then let us wait and hope that this is one of those occasions when we do not get a reaction to our first owl," Albus decided. "If so we shall do nothing more about it, no further owls and no personal visit."

"And if they do reply after all?" Minerva asked.

"Then," Albus decided. "We must find a way to convince them it was all a mistake."

The Devices, being the heirs to The Book, were much less inclined to disregard the supernatural than other Muggles, of course. When eleven-year-old Anathema raced into the kitchen waving a letter made out of parchment and shouting: "Mummy, Mummy, I have beene accepted into a fchoole of witchcrafte!" Mrs Device therefore accepted the letter, read it carefully and then considered.

"I'm not quite sure, darling," she said then. "This appears to be a boarding school and what if ye were to be bullied again? Ye wouldst not have the chance to get awaye from the other children easily."

"But it iffe witchcrafte, Mummy!" little Anathema argued. "Juft imagine what I woulde be able to doe!"

Mrs Device considered some more. After all, many children went away to boarding school at the age of eleven and were quite happy and proud to do so.

"Very well," she decided when she realised that she would come to no clear conclusion. "Let us consult The Booke."

Anathema nodded excitedly. She loved consulting The Book. It was always full of surprises.

Mrs Device took The Book off the shelf, ran her finger over its side and opened it to a random page. Then she placed it open on the table, closed her eyes and pointed her finger at it.

"What doef it saye, Anathema?" she demanded.

Anathema knelt on the chair and peered closely at where her mother's finger was pointing.

"No, Anathema," she read out dutifully. "That Fchoole iffe Nonfenfe. Ye havft bettere Fingf ter doe."

"Oh well then," Mrs Device said and threw the parchment letter away. She never heard any more about it.

An Antichrist is, of course, not a wizard, but then Antichrists are rather rare and in some ways very similar to wizards. Since the UK does not have any schools for Antichrists, Adam Young received a Hogwarts acceptance letter in the summer after his eleventh birthday.

Adam was of course delighted and never for a moment considered that it might not be real. And why should he? He was, after all, an Antichrist, and if an Antichrist expected something to be real then it was. Whether or not Hogwarts and the wizarding world are a product of Adam's imagination we cannot say. The moment he started expecting them to be they definitely were and always had been.

Now, of course, Adam was very excited to be going to Hogwarts and learn magic, but just as of course he couldn't possibly go there without the rest of The Them. The next thing he expected after Hogwarts and the wizarding world being real was therefore that Pepper, Brian and Wensleydale had received owls just like his own on the very same day - and that was where things started going wrong.

Both Pepper's and Brian's parents required visits from a Hogwarts Professor to convince them that the school was real, but eventually accepted the necessity of their children learning magic.

Wensleydale's parents, however, simply didn't care. Real or not, they did not want their son to grow up to be a wizard. They did not think a magical profession suited their son and what was worse, their son did not think a magical profession suited him. He could and would not forego a thorough education in Mathematics and Science.

"I'm not going and that's that," he informed the shocked Them. "I am staying right here and going to Tadfield Secondary like everybody else from our old school. If you want to go to this stupid Hogwarts and get totally worthless degrees, then go and do it without me."

Adam could have expected him into going, of course, but that would have been messing people about, and not just any people at that. He couldn't possibly do that to one of his very best friends.

Splitting up The Them was unthinkable to him, though. There was therefore no other solution but for all four of them to stay in Lower Tadfield.

"We do need to learn how to control our magic, though," Pepper reminded them all. "All sorts of horrible accidents can happen to witches who can't. Professor Sprout said so."

"Then we'll have to learn it here," Adam declared and almost expected a wizarding day school into being right then and there in Lower Tadfield.

He did think better of it just in time, though. There just couldn't be a large enough magical population to support a school in the Tadfield area without all sorts of magic messing up his beloved home.

"I know," he declared instead. "We'll take private lessons. We do have a witch in town, after all. Anathema will teach us."

And thus, one morning four children waving strangely familiar looking parchment letters showed up on Anathema's doorstep.

They were, of course, terribly disappointed when they learned that Anathema had never gone to Hogwarts either.

"And it's never been a problem," she assured them. "That Professor of yours must have been exaggerating terribly."

"See," Wensleydale said. "It's all fine. We don't need this. Let's just forget about it and focus on Math and Science to prepare us for university."

"Oh, but I do want to learn magic," Pepper insisted. "And after Professor Sprout went to such lengths to convince my parents I don't think they'll just forget about it, you know."

Adam could have expected them to forget, but that, too, would have been messing people about, and besides, he still wanted to learn magic, too.

As, it turned out, did Anathema.

"Maybe we could hire a teacher to teach all five of us," she suggested. "Now that I'm no longer a professional descendent I do have a lot of time on my hands."

"But where should we find a magic teacher?" Wensleydale, ever the practical one, asked. "The only one we know is Professor Sprout and she is already teaching at Hogwarts. She won't have time to teach us as well."

Adam could have expected Professor Sprout to have time, or expected Hogwarts to fire her, but those would have been rather extreme measures.

"Let's ask my godfathers," he suggested instead. "They are supernatural beings so I'm sure they know how to find a wizard."

And thus the very next morning Aziraphale received a letter asking him to find a private teacher for five very eager students of magic who nevertheless required plenty of time off for playing and to pursue their nonmagical educations. He called Crowley immediately and the two set out in the Bentley ...

... but that is a different story. 


End file.
